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EDINBURGH - In a professional rugby era of PlayStation, hair product and sponsors' endorsements, Southland's latest All Black is a hulking anachronism - a modern day reminder of those winters where Colin Meads worked on his stamina by lugging livestock up hill.
Andy Earl may have been the last All Black to prepare for a test by dragging sheep from snowdrifts, though you sense the task would not be beyond Jamie 'Whopper' Mackintosh.
His off season is already mapped out and naturally an agricultural component has been factored in.
Once his debut tour of Hong Kong, Great Britain and Ireland is done and dusted Mackintosh and fellow-propping farmer Tony Woodcock are off to Andrew Hore's Canterbury station to muck in.
The visit was planned before the All Blacks hooker did his ankle during last weekend's Bledisloe Cup test in Hong Kong - and will be timely given Hore's mobility is limited for the next few months.
From there Mackintosh heads south to the family sheep farm at Waimahaka - a 40 minute drive from Invercargill - to finish fencing up the 200-odd acres his old man Alastair tacked on to their existing parcel of land.
Home is definitely on the range for Mackintosh, a farm-raised rugby prodigy who is annually reluctant to relocate to the metropolis of Dunedin for the Highlanders' Super 14 campaign.
Deep down he wouldn't be anywhere else but rural Southland and the Tokanui club where his rugby career took seed and blossomed.
"I love to get back to the farm when I'm not playing," he said, explaining its therapeutic qualities on the eve of his test debut against Scotland at Murrayfield.
"I can just completely switch off. I'm a keen hunter .... I just brought myself a chocolate lab pup, I've got my gun, my truck - I'm right into it."
Of course rugby competes for his affection and it is also a labour of love.
Since his mid teens Mackintosh has been tagged as a future All Black, on the strength of his dimensions alone.
In his first year out of school the 1.92m, 128kg prop was paraded as Southland rugby's next big thing.
He promptly found himself playing 15-20 minutes off the bench for his beloved Stags, the continuation of a trend that always seen him fight above his weight.
The 2004 NPC was a learning experience.
He remembers being buckled by Otago's Carl Hayman, who was maturing into the world's premier tighthead.
"That was probably the biggest hiding I ever got. I obviously haven't watched that on TV and don't really want to," he said.
"That was a really big learning curve for me that year.
"I came up against the likes of (Neemia) Tialata, (Kees) Meeuws and (Greg) Somerville for a few scrums. It was never for a great length of time, but it was enough to let me know where I was."
He also had All Blacks scrum guru Mike Cron to administer less painful advice, a relationship that goes back seven years.
Cron first mentored Mackintosh as a 16-year-old member of the New Zealand schools' team, the first of a sequence of age group teams that have groomed him for Saturday's test debut.
"Cronno's been like my second Dad," Mackintosh smiled.
"It's a bit of a team joke. They were paying me out this week that I spend more time in Cronno's room than I do in mine.
"He's been a pretty special figure in what I've achieved. Being a bit taller I've got to work so much harder on scrummaging - if things aren't right he gives the confidence that he can fix it.
"You sit there and you scrum against the bed and you get it right."
Mackintosh's height leaves no room for shortcuts.
"Maybe a shorter prop can get away with missing his hit and having a little bit less technique because they can find themselves in a good spot but I've got long levers and if I find myself in a bad position I get hinged quite easily."
Cron was just the father figure to shape his future.
"He always reminded me of a big gangly race horse," Cron said.
"I remember saying to him years ago `You're never going to race as a two-year-old, you'll race as a five year-old'.
"In horse terms his strength had to catch up with his frame."
Mackintosh visited Christchurch a couple of times for tuition and crashed at Cron's place.
They would go to Rugby Park and train with Canterbury for two or three day blocks.
So did Mackintosh give any thought to maybe relocating permanently from the farm to the Garden City?
"Moving did cross my mind when I was a little bit younger," he admitted.
"One of my fears was not playing for a winning Super 14 team or NPC team .... guys who play for Canterbury, those boys do get to play semifinal and finals rugby - it does make a difference," he said.
"I was going to give it to 25-26 - and if I hadn't made it by then well I'd bite the bullet and go somewhere else for two years. I'm just happy I made it from down here," said Mackintosh, who ironically denied Cantabrian Wyatt Crockett a place on this tour.
Now the challenge is to prove he can foot it at test level against an adversary Cron rates highly.
Euan Murray has been touted as the British and Irish Lions starting tighthead in South Africa next year.
The 29-year-old followed a similar pathway through the Scottish age group system and has started 21 of Scotland's last 22 internationals.
"It's a great way to start for Whopper, going against someone so highly regarded," Cron said.
"He's a big strong boy. Jamie will definitely know more about test rugby after 80 minutes, he'll know where he's at.
"I've already told him it'll be different to playing Manawatu in Invercargill."
- NZPA
